Orcutt Oil Field
The Orcutt Oil Field is a large oil field in the Solomon Hills south of Orcutt, in Santa Barbara County, California. Discovered in 1901 by William Warren Orcutt, it was the first giant field (over 100 million barrels (16,000,000 m3) in ultimate recovery) to be found in Santa Barbara County, and its development led to the boom town of Orcutt, now the major unincorporated southern suburb of Santa Maria. With a cumulative production in 2008 of 870,000 barrels (138,000 m3) of oil, it is the largest onshore producing field in Santa Barbara County.
The Orcutt field was called the "Santa Maria Field" until the discovery of the larger Santa Maria Valley Oil Field on the plain to the north, an area which is now largely covered with the urban and suburban development. Several oil companies, including Breitburn Energy and Phoenix Energy, LLC are still actively producing from the Orcutt field. The field, mostly located on the old Careaga family ranch, also contains the remains of the ghost town of Bicknell, a company town built for oil workers in the early years of the 20th century, but abandoned in the mid-1930s.
The Orcutt field occupies a large portion of the Solomon Hills and Careaga canyon south of Orcutt, including most of the otherwise undeveloped land between Highway 101 on the east and State Route 135 on the west. Its total productive area is 4,220 acres (17.1 km2), almost 7 square miles (18 km2). Most of the active oilfield operations are invisible from the populated parts of the Santa Maria Valley, as the wells, tanks, and other facilities are behind the Graciosa Ridge, which rises to 1,346 feet (410 m) elevation at Mount Solomon, and the most active part of the field in 2009 was on the south slope of the range. There are no public roads entering the field.
Terrain is rolling and occasionally steep, with wellpads cut into hillsides or occupying flat areas. Native vegetation is a mix of chaparral and oak woodlands (California montane chaparral and woodlands), with some stands of Bishop pine (Pinus muricata) on north-facing slopes.
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